________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER VIII
[A further account of Glubbdubdrib. Ancient and modern history
corrected.]
Having a desire to see those ancients who were most renowned for
wit and learning, I set apart one day on purpose. I proposed that
Homer and Aristotle might appear at the head of all their
commentators; but these were so numerous, that some hundreds were
forced to attend in the court, and outward rooms of the palace. I
knew, and could distinguish those two heroes, at first sight, not
only from the crowd, but from each other. Homer was the taller and
comelier person of the two, walked very erect for one of his age,
and his eyes were the most quick and piercing I ever beheld.
Aristotle stooped much, and made use of a staff. His visage was
meagre, his hair lank and thin, and his voice hollow. I soon
discovered that both of them were perfect strangers to the rest of
the company, and had never seen or heard of them before; and I had
a whisper from a ghost who shall be nameless, "that these
commentators always kept in the most distant quarters from their
principals, in the lower world, through a consciousness of shame
and guilt, because they had so horribly misrepresented the meaning
of those authors to posterity." I introduced Didymus and
Eustathius to Homer, and prevailed on him to treat them better than
perhaps they deserved, for he soon found they wanted a genius to
enter into the spirit of a poet. But Aristotle was out of all
patience with the account I gave him of Scotus and Ramus, as I
presented them to him; and he asked them, "whether the rest of the
tribe were as great dunces as themselves?"
I then desired the governor to call up Descartes and Gassendi, with
whom I prevailed to explain their systems to Aristotle. This great
philosopher freely acknowledged his own mistakes in natural
philosophy, because he proceeded in many things upon conjecture, as
all men must do; and he found that Gassendi, who had made the
doctrine of Epicurus as palatable as he could, and the vortices of
Descartes, were equally to be exploded. He predicted the same fate
to ATTRACTION, whereof the present learned are such zealous
asserters. He said, "that new systems of nature were but new
fashions, which would vary in every age; and even those, who
pretend to demonstrate them from mathematical principles, would
flourish but a short period of time, and be out of vogue when that
was determined."
I spent five days in conversing with many others of the ancient
learned. I saw most of the first Roman emperors. I prevailed on
the governor to call up Heliogabalus's cooks to dress us a dinner,
but they could not show us much of their skill, for want of
materials. A helot of Agesilaus made us a dish of Spartan broth,
but I was not able to get down a second spoonful.
The two gentlemen, who conducted me to the island, were pressed by
their private affairs to return in three days, which I employed in
seeing some of the modern dead, who had made the greatest figure,
for two or three hundred years past, in our own and other countries
of Europe; and having been always a great admirer of old
illustrious families, I desired the governor would call up a dozen
or two of kings, with their ancestors in order for eight or nine
generations. But my disappointment was grievous and unexpected.
For, instead of a long train with royal diadems, I saw in one
family two fiddlers, three spruce courtiers, and an Italian
prelate. In another, a barber, an abbot, and two cardinals. I
have too great a veneration for crowned heads, to dwell any longer
on so nice a subject. But as to counts, marquises, dukes, earls,
and the like, I was not so scrupulous. And I confess, it was not
without some pleasure, that I found myself able to trace the
particular features, by which certain families are distinguished,
up to their originals. I could plainly discover whence one family
derives a long chin; why a second has abounded with knaves for two
generations, and fools for two more; why a third happened to be
crack-brained, and a fourth to be sharpers; whence it came, what
Polydore Virgil says of a certain great house, Nec vir fortis, nec
foemina casta; how cruelty, falsehood, and cowardice, grew to be
characteristics by which certain families are distinguished as much
as by their coats of arms; who first brought the pox into a noble
house, which has lineally descended scrofulous tumours to their
posterity. Neither could I wonder at all this, when I saw such an
interruption of lineages, by pages, lackeys, valets, coachmen,
gamesters, fiddlers, players, captains, and pickpockets.
I was chiefly disgusted with modern history. For having strictly
examined all the persons of greatest name in the courts of princes,
for a hundred years past, I found how the world had been misled by
prostitute writers, to ascribe the greatest exploits in war, to
cowards; the wisest counsel, to fools; sincerity, to flatterers;
Roman virtue, to betrayers of their country; piety, to atheists;
chastity, to sodomites; truth, to informers: how many innocent and
excellent persons had been condemned to death or banishment by the
practising of great ministers upon the corruption of judges, and
the malice of factions: how many villains had been exalted to the
highest places of trust, power, dignity, and profit: how great a
share in the motions and events of courts, councils, and senates
might be challenged by bawds, whores, pimps, parasites, and
buffoons. How low an opinion I had of human wisdom and integrity,
when I was truly informed of the springs and motives of great
enterprises and revolutions in the world, and of the contemptible
accidents to which they owed their success.
Here I discovered the roguery and ignorance of those who pretend to
write anecdotes, or secret history; who send so many kings to their
graves with a cup of poison; will repeat the discourse between a
prince and chief minister, where no witness was by; unlock the
thoughts and cabinets of ambassadors and secretaries of state; and
have the perpetual misfortune to be mistaken. Here I discovered
the true causes of many great events that have surprised the world;
how a whore can govern the back-stairs, the back-stairs a council,
and the council a senate. A general confessed, in my presence,
"that he got a victory purely by the force of cowardice and ill
conduct;" and an admiral, "that, for want of proper intelligence,
he beat the enemy, to whom he intended to betray the fleet." Three
kings protested to me, "that in their whole reigns they never did
once prefer any person of merit, unless by mistake, or treachery of
some minister in whom they confided; neither would they do it if
they were to live again:" and they showed, with great strength of
reason, "that the royal throne could not be supported without
corruption, because that positive, confident, restiff temper, which
virtue infused into a man, was a perpetual clog to public
business."
I had the curiosity to inquire in a particular manner, by what
methods great numbers had procured to themselves high titles of
honour, and prodigious estates; and I confined my inquiry to a very
modern period: however, without grating upon present times,
because I would be sure to give no offence even to foreigners (for
I hope the reader need not be told, that I do not in the least
intend my own country, in what I say upon this occasion,) a great
number of persons concerned were called up; and, upon a very slight
examination, discovered such a scene of infamy, that I cannot
reflect upon it without some seriousness. Perjury, oppression,
subornation, fraud, pandarism, and the like infirmities, were among
the most excusable arts they had to mention; and for these I gave,
as it was reasonable, great allowance. But when some confessed
they owed their greatness and wealth to sodomy, or incest; others,
to the prostituting of their own wives and daughters; others, to
the betraying of their country or their prince; some, to poisoning;
more to the perverting of justice, in order to destroy the
innocent, I hope I may be pardoned, if these discoveries inclined
me a little to abate of that profound veneration, which I am
naturally apt to pay to persons of high rank, who ought to be
treated with the utmost respect due to their sublime dignity, by us
their inferiors.
I had often read of some great services done to princes and states,
and desired to see the persons by whom those services were
performed. Upon inquiry I was told, "that their names were to be
found on no record, except a few of them, whom history has
represented as the vilest of rogues and traitors." As to the rest,
I had never once heard of them. They all appeared with dejected
looks, and in the meanest habit; most of them telling me, "they
died in poverty and disgrace, and the rest on a scaffold or a
gibbet."
Among others, there was one person, whose case appeared a little
singular. He had a youth about eighteen years old standing by his
side. He told me, "he had for many years been commander of a ship;
and in the sea fight at Actium had the good fortune to break
through the enemy's great line of battle, sink three of their
capital ships, and take a fourth, which was the sole cause of
Antony's flight, and of the victory that ensued; that the youth
standing by him, his only son, was killed in the action." He
added, "that upon the confidence of some merit, the war being at an
end, he went to Rome, and solicited at the court of Augustus to be
preferred to a greater ship, whose commander had been killed; but,
without any regard to his pretensions, it was given to a boy who
had never seen the sea, the son of Libertina, who waited on one of
the emperor's mistresses. Returning back to his own vessel, he was
charged with neglect of duty, and the ship given to a favourite
page of Publicola, the vice-admiral; whereupon he retired to a poor
farm at a great distance from Rome, and there ended his life." I
was so curious to know the truth of this story, that I desired
Agrippa might be called, who was admiral in that fight. He
appeared, and confirmed the whole account: but with much more
advantage to the captain, whose modesty had extenuated or concealed
a great part of his merit.
I was surprised to find corruption grown so high and so quick in
that empire, by the force of luxury so lately introduced; which
made me less wonder at many parallel cases in other countries,
where vices of all kinds have reigned so much longer, and where the
whole praise, as well as pillage, has been engrossed by the chief
commander, who perhaps had the least title to either.
As every person called up made exactly the same appearance he had
done in the world, it gave me melancholy reflections to observe how
much the race of human kind was degenerated among us within these
hundred years past; how the pox, under all its consequences and
denominations had altered every lineament of an English
countenance; shortened the size of bodies, unbraced the nerves,
relaxed the sinews and muscles, introduced a sallow complexion, and
rendered the flesh loose and rancid.
I descended so low, as to desire some English yeoman of the old
stamp might be summoned to appear; once so famous for the
simplicity of their manners, diet, and dress; for justice in their
dealings; for their true spirit of liberty; for their valour, and
love of their country. Neither could I be wholly unmoved, after
comparing the living with the dead, when I considered how all these
pure native virtues were prostituted for a piece of money by their
grand-children; who, in selling their votes and managing at
elections, have acquired every vice and corruption that can
possibly be learned in a court.
_____
Content of PART III - A VOYAGE TO LAPUTA, BALNIBARBI, LUGGNAGG, GLUBBDUBDRIB, AND JAPAN CHAPTER VIII [Jonathan Swift's novel: Gulliver's Travels] _
Read next: PART III - A VOYAGE TO LAPUTA, BALNIBARBI, LUGGNAGG, GLUBBDUBDRIB, AND JAPAN: CHAPTER IX
Read previous: PART III - A VOYAGE TO LAPUTA, BALNIBARBI, LUGGNAGG, GLUBBDUBDRIB, AND JAPAN: CHAPTER VII
Table of content of Gulliver's Travels
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
